AS party conference in Brighton kicks off, the Labour leader hits the streets and insists he made the right decisions in row with Unite union.

Ed Miliband has a laugh with wife Justine and sons Daniel and Samuel in Brighton. (Photo: Reuters)

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ED Miliband yesterday insisted he had no regrets over the battle of Falkirk when Labour went to war with their biggest union backer.

On the eve of the party’s conference in Brighton, the Labour leader said he had “followed the right process” in the row with Unite after the union was accused of packing the constituency party to ensure their candidate would be selected.

Miliband said: “I think with every stage in the process we have followed the correct procedures. We even sent the report to the police to see whether there were any grounds for criminal action.

“The candidate around whom there was controversy is no longer going to be the candidate, the constituency remains in special measures, the scheme under which people joined has been suspended and we’ve embarked on a major reform of our party.

“I think all the way along we’ve followed the right process.”

Earlier this month, Labour lifted the suspensions of Unite-backed would-be MP Karie Murphy and local party chairman Stevie Deans, saying that they too had done nothing wrong.

However, Murphy announced that she would be withdrawing as a potential general election candidate in the constituency for the sake of “reconciliation and unity”.

Miliband said: “I think what is important in this is that the candidate around whom there was the original controversy has withdrawn and now the Labour Party is moving on to look at the big reforms that our party needs, so we can be a party genuinely of working people.”

Meanwhile, Miliband said he was ready to tackle Britain’s “cost of living crisis”, promising to axe the bedroom tax and extend childcare.

He also vowed an increase in the minimum wage to help out those at the bottom of the working ladder as well as action on zero hour contracts.

And he pledged to protect the squeezed middle after Rachel Reeves, deputy to shadow chancellor Ed Balls, said people earning £60,000 were “not rich” and those earning up to £150,000 would not face tax rises under Labour.

Miliband said he wanted to “send a very clear signal” that it was wrong for millions of British working people to be unable to afford to bring up their families properly. And he said that while the Coalition were insisting that the economy was turning the corner, working people did not feel the results in their pockets.

Taking to the city’s streets to deliver his message that David Cameron’s government would stand up only for the privileged few, Milband leapt on to a platform to promise an “economy that works for working people” if Labour are victorious in the next election.

The party leader, who earlier took a family stroll along Brighton seafront with his wife Justine and children Daniel and Samuel, said: “This next election is going to come down to the oldest question in politics – whose side are you on and who will you fight for?

“We are going to scrap the bedroom tax, that’s what I mean by a government that fights for you.”

The announcements came as Miliband sought to seize the initiative following a drip-feed of claims from Gordon Brown’s former spin doctor, Damian McBride, which threatened to cast a distracting shadow over the party conference.

McBride’s new autobiography lays bare the bitter backstabbing and infighting during the Blair-Brown years when Labour were in power. The party fears more revelations from McBride in the days ahead.